Steam CPU Usage Issue?

[DeCrow]

Not sure where to turn to with this, but I thought I'd give Steam Discussions a try:

So right now I am experiencing an issue with the Steam Client where immediately upon booting up Steam, CPU usage goes up to around 25% of my CPU's resources. This causes major frame-rate issues and results in all of my games which are associated with Steam to have sub-par performance. The only work-around I have been able to find is what when playing certain games that don't necessarily require Steam to be active at all times to play (like Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas etc.), I can alt-tab out of the game, bring up the taskmanager and click "end process" on Steam before bringing the game back up. This immediately solves the issue and frame-rate and performance is as it should be and CPU usage shoots down dramatically.

The issue however, persists for games that require steam to be active in the background to run or which are multiplayer games associated with the Steam network (Team Fortress 2, Empire Total War etc.). The workaround obvious cannot work with these games as ending Steam will cause the games themselves to crash.

In an attempt to find out what my be causing the problem, I used "Process Explorer" to discover the source of the issue. Steam itself appears to only be using around 1% of CPU resources or less. However, immediately upon starting up steam a process called "svchost.exe" begins to use nearly 30% of CPU resources, which is causing the issue. CPU usage for this "svchost.exe" only goes up when steam is active and immediately drops down upon completely exiting steam.

Placing Steam into Offline mode does not help, nor does minimizing it to the taskbar. In fact, simply bringing up the steam login screen will cause "svchost.exe" to begin using the large amount of CPU resources. No other program aside from Steam appears to cause the issue.

It appears that this instance of "svchost.exe" is tied to the "DCOMlauncher, Plug and Play, and Power Management services" for my computer and cannot be suspended or otherwise halted as that results in system instability (problems unable to open etc.). Using Process Explorer, I found that the specific threads within the svchost.exe are several instances of "ntdll.dll!rtlValidateHeap+0x170" (the usage switches between several of these threads).

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find out any information online which could lead me to a solution for this issue and I've tried various things I could think of without success. All I can say is that Steam is somehow tied to the issue but I have no idea why.

Anyone have any ideas as to what this might be?

[Doug]

I'm no Windows techie (at least not for over a decade :P), but I can tell you this.. svchost.exe is simply the name for a number of background windows processes that can do literally anything. Obviously Steam is generating Windows processing relating to network access and quite possibly the VAC and such that are tying up your CPU.

None of this actually helps your problem any, just information.. point is, Steam (or any other program) can use much more in the way of resources than is obviously attached to their executable.

Try going to Help -> Steam Support and submitting a help request there.

Does your computer meet the minimum system requirements for whatever you're playing?

FWIW, my Task Manager CPU usage sits at or near 0% even with the Steam client running.
So another possibility that strikes me is that you have a background application (anti-virus, anti-spyware or their ilk) that is processing everything passing thru your Steam connection and that's what's eating up your CPU cycles. Just a thought, tho...

[DeCrow]

Thanks for the reply.

I did submit a request to Steam Support, hopefully that'll do some good there.

My computer more than meets the system requirements. For instance, in the case of New Vegas my computer well exceeds the recommended specs, and when I "end process" on Steam, FPS shoots up to being completely smooth. Its only when steam is active in the background that frame rate drops to a constant stutter.

I thought of the anti-virus having some interference with Steam, but my program (VIPRE) isn't listed on the list of programs which interfere with Steam. I've also disabled it temporarily at one point to test to see if that was the issue. No change it would seem.

Its a very weird and very annoying issue to say the least. As far as I can tell, its somehow connected to the Plug and Play and DCOMlauncher services.

[Marko]

Try disabling the Steam - inGame-overlay. At the top of your Steam client Press Steam > Settings > Ingame and UNcheck "Enable Steam Comunnity ingame."

Basically pressing Shift + Tab While in a game won't have any effect anymore but it could possibly fix some of your lag issues.

Good Luck

[DeCrow]

@TheBDK

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have helped. CPU usage remains at 30% or so with Steam active and push to talk enabled. I appreciate the suggestion though. It was worth a shot.

@Marko

Yeah that was one of the first things I tried actually. Didn't seem to have changed anything.

[Abortion Lotion]

hey guys I just resolved to this as help today so I don't know much about this forum. but I could use some info about a game, i'm not sure whether it will work or not and I don't want to take the chance with 20$

[kalel]

You will find the solution here:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/864977564572404633/#p2
Big picture mode on and then off.

[nacho]

Originally posted by BDK:

Enable push to talk and you'll get your 25% processing power back.

Steam > Settings > Voice.

Old known bug that valve refuse to address.


Push to talk enabled (cpu usage at 0-3%):
http://s20.postimg.org/twub6ul8d/pushtotalk_enabled.jpg

Push to talk disabled (it's now removing noise using the cpu, even when not gaming):
http://s20.postimg.org/3pt4aw2yl/pushtotalk_disabled.jpg

Wow thanks. Steam had been hogging one of my cores for a while now, and this got it back to normal :)

[Caladell]

Originally posted by tianxia:

You will find the solution here:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/864977564572404633/#p2
Big picture mode on and then off.

Awesome. Been having this for a while, and this solved it. Thanks!

[ImTheCaptainNow]

i also have this problem, but clicking on the button on the top right which is the button for big picture mode and entering it, and clicking exit or back to desktop seems to not resolve the problem for me, ;( please helpp

[Ellyn]

Hi, I have a similar problem. Steam keeps using about 60% of the cpu for games like TF2. Then after a while it crashes, usually when something big happens (death, explosion etc). I have tested other games and the more intensive they are (Civ 5 for example) the quicker they crash. When it crashes I get a sound loop and the screen freezes. It is Steam however as other games like SimCity on Origin work perfectly with no issue at all. I have tried disabling the Steam Overlay, I have disabled my firewall and it still has the problem.

I thought recently that it could be something to do with a program called Nvidia Network Access Manager/Firewall, but I can't find it to un-install it.

I've also searched through this article (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289) to see if it was any other conflicting applications but the only one that it may be is the before mentioned. Please help, i have been without my computer for about 3 months now and getting pretty bored of this.

[Romeo]

Same problem here, push to talk and big picture mode didn't fix it. CSGO went from 170 fps to 50.

[S.]

I think I found a solution to this problem at least it worked for me. My CPU usage by steam was always by 25% as minimum and that on all cores. I had a new install of windows and steam was used from other drive so I haven't installed fresh copy of steam on my PC just did copy paste to other drive. Then when I was tuning my PC I found out that steam is constantly using lots of resources. New install of steam did nothing issue still persisted.

My solution was Steam Guard to turn off and on again. Using email authentication.

Hope this helps

[Leõardo]

Originally posted by Ellyn:

Hi, I have a similar problem. Steam keeps using about 60% of the cpu for games like TF2. Then after a while it crashes, usually when something big happens (death, explosion etc). I have tested other games and the more intensive they are (Civ 5 for example) the quicker they crash. When it crashes I get a sound loop and the screen freezes. It is Steam however as other games like SimCity on Origin work perfectly with no issue at all. I have tried disabling the Steam Overlay, I have disabled my firewall and it still has the problem.

I thought recently that it could be something to do with a program called Nvidia Network Access Manager/Firewall, but I can't find it to un-install it.

I've also searched through this article (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289) to see if it was any other conflicting applications but the only one that it may be is the before mentioned. Please help, i have been without my computer for about 3 months now and getting pretty bored of this.

That's a GPU problem.

[Brewski- CaseGod- RETIRED]

Originally posted by Ellyn:

Hi, I have a similar problem. Steam keeps using about 60% of the cpu for games like TF2. Then after a while it crashes, usually when something big happens (death, explosion etc). I have tested other games and the more intensive they are (Civ 5 for example) the quicker they crash. When it crashes I get a sound loop and the screen freezes. It is Steam however as other games like SimCity on Origin work perfectly with no issue at all. I have tried disabling the Steam Overlay, I have disabled my firewall and it still has the problem.

I thought recently that it could be something to do with a program called Nvidia Network Access Manager/Firewall, but I can't find it to un-install it.

I've also searched through this article (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289) to see if it was any other conflicting applications but the only one that it may be is the before mentioned. Please help, i have been without my computer for about 3 months now and getting pretty bored of this.

omg litterally me, 60% of my cpu when playing tf2

[Ser-volk]

Originally posted by kalel:

You will find the solution here:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/864977564572404633/#p2
Big picture mode on and then off.

did worked for me too. But only till next steam restart. After that I need to do it again.